Search

We provide predictions for the production of a W boson in association with up to two jets including at least one b jet at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with 7 TeV center-of-mass energy. Both exclusive and inclusive event cross section and b-jet cross sections are presented. The calculation is performed consistently in the five-flavor-number scheme where both q¯q¹ and bq (q ≠ b) initiated parton level processes are included at NLO QCD. We study the residual theoretical uncertainties of the NLO predictions due to the renormalization and factorization scale dependence, to the uncertainty from the parton distribution functions, and to the values of as and the bottom-quark mass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the cross section for production of a Z boson in association with four jets at the Large Hadron Collider, at next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling. When the Z decays to neutrinos, this process is a key irreducible background to many searches for new physics. Its computation has been made feasible through the development of the on-shell approach to perturbative quantum field theory. We present the total cross section for pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV, after folding in the decay of the Z boson, or virtual photon, to a charged-lepton pair. We also provide distributions of the transverse momenta of the four jets, and we compare cross sections and distributions to the corresponding ones for the production of a W boson with accompanying jets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]